Margherita Giacobino's book is a fictionalised biography/autobiography of Patricia Highsmith. A lesbian in an era when to be homosexual was to be reviled and discriminated against, and made to feel guilty and ashamed, Patricia Highsmith struggled with her sexual identity in this social context, and the book fruitfully explores how this might have contributed to her creative output. The title is a reference to Patricia Highsmith's second novel The Price of Salt, a lesbian romance originally published under a pseudonym after it was rejected by the publisher of her first novel. It was not until 1990 that she agreed to its reissue under her own name with the new title Carol.